Logocentrism
Afonso Ribeiro
The brief was to create a small publication with texts by a selection of authors on various design topics, especially typography. I chose to pair texts by Loos, Marinetti and Tschichold, since they share a concrete avant-garde vision and a common desire to achieve formal purity and a universal aesthetic.
I set aside the page count and made a poster instead, in which the texts lose their personality and become homogeneous while the authors’ names and the titles of their works stand out — their mere presence already evokes their ideas.
I used screen printing as a manual technique, running counter to the authors’ mechanized, technological ideals. I initially planned a different color for each screen, but plain black ink on paper, together with the usual errors of large-scale hand screen printing, took on an unexpectedly grungy, disposable, handmade semiotics. I admit this process helped the work gain a new meaning.
Imprint / Technical Rider:
Year: 2025
Dimensions: 420 × 594 mm; 1 page
Materials: Canson A2 drawing paper 120 g/m²; Green Earth water-based ink for paper, black.
Production and finishing: Screen printing with two A2+ screens, 90 threads; Aquasol No. 2 emulsion, Murakami Co.
Resources and credits: TYPEFACES: Founders Grotesk Bold Condensed by Kris Sowersby (Klim Type, 2010); Neue Haas Grotesk Medium by Max Miedinger (Haas Type Foundry, 1957).
TEXTS: “Ornament and Crime” by Adolf Loos (1908); “Die Neue Typographie” by Jan Tschichold (1925); “Manifesto of Futurism” by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1909).
SOFTWARE: Adobe InDesign CC 2026
Curricular Unit:
Advanced Studies in Editorial Design and Typography (1st year)
Supervising Professor:
Mário Moura
Keywords: Typographic Experiments, Design Criticism, Manual Technique
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